Chapter 45: ~Chapter 14~ Part 2

At the end of the following break, Judy and I went outside to talk, hunkering down near the stairwell out of earshot from the placeholders.

"You can't tell me?" I exclaimed in a bout of incredulity-induced carelessness. My assistant looked at me disapprovingly and shook her head, so I toned my voice down a little and asked, "Why?"

"Neige made me promise I wouldn't tell you."

"Me in particular?" She nodded. "Okay, so how about you tell it to Angie and I ask her?"

"Chief, please don't try to rules lawyer me."

"Yeah, right. Sorry."

She might've taken pity on me, as Judy soon leaned closer and whispered, "It concerns your social life. She didn't want me to tell you because she didn't want to cause complications for you."

Well, that was a hint. Snowy was a good girl, so it was something I could imagine her saying, but it didn't make me any less curious (or worried) about exactly what their fight was about.

"All right then, time for Plan B."

"Plan B?" Judy repeated after me with a quizzical slant on her face.

"Lunch break on the roof. We are going to gather the entire gang and force Snowy and the princess to interact and make up."

Judy's eyes ever so slightly narrowed at my proclamation.

"That sounds like interfering to me."

I set my jaw and frowned at her comment. "Yes. Yes, it is."

"I thought we agreed we wouldn't interfere."

"So you would rather see our friends going at each other's throats?"

Judy's expression darkened and she actually returned my frown.

"That's a dirty question."

"Your answer?" I pressed, and after staring daggers at each other for a few seconds she let out an indignant huff.

"Fine."

"You see, I knew you would come around."

"Don't stretch your luck. I will start to hate you if you keep doing that."

"Sure, sure," I placated her with a smile. "Okay, I will take care of the princess, you get the others."

I wanted to make some plans, but then the bell rang and we had to hurry back to the classroom.

Once lunch break rolled around (meaning two boring lessons later) I gave Judy the sign to start gathering the others. We didn't agree on a sign beforehand, but I hoped my thumb up and winning smile gave her the right idea anyways. At least she did leave the classroom in the direction of the stairwell, probably going to get Snowy, so that was a start. As for me, I had the much more difficult task of convincing the still lethargic princess to come along with me. I waited for Josh and the rest of the group to leave before I limbered up my shoulders and proceeded to tap the princess between the shoulder blades.

She automatically glanced back, but then she remembered that she should be sulking and she quickly hid her face again.

"Leave me alone. I told you I don't want to talk to you."

"Yes, but that was in the morning. Now it's lunchtime."

"Shut up. I told you to leave me alone."

"Oh please..." I stood up and circled around her desk. "Listen, against my best efforts, I still don't know why you are sulking like that, but you cannot skip lunch just because of that. It's bad for your health." She didn't answer, so I leaned closer and whispered in a low voice, "If you don't come to eat with us, I might be forced to do something really embarrassing."

She visibly shuddered and, after a few seconds of tense silence, she peeked up.

"Such as...?"

"Well, for starters, I might have to pick you up and carry you to the roof." I could see her eyes widen behind her bangs. "In fact, I will do it in a princess carry. It would be fitting."

"You wouldn't..."

"Wouldn't I?"

"... I-I will scream and call you a pervert!"

"You do that anyways. People are used to it by now."

"I-I-I will bite you then! I will bite you really hard!"

"A small price," I told her as I leaned even closer. I wanted to tease her a little more, but instead when I got closer she jumped out of her chair with an especially long and loud squeak and nearly head-butted me in the process. It seemed like she was about to dart away, so I instinctively reached after her and grabbed her by the hand. The moment I did so her voice abruptly cut out and she gave me one of those rare ‘doe in the headlights' stares. I shook my head and flared my nostrils.

"Why does everything have to be so complicated with you? Come on, let's go." I started to drag her along, but she held onto her desk.

"W-W-Wait!"

"What now?" I asked as I faced her again. "Do you want me to carry you after all?"

"No! Absolutely not! It's... I need to get my wallet and..."

"Don't worry about it, it's my treat. " Saying so, I continued dragging the beet-red girl after me, and thankfully she stopped protesting by the time we exited through the door.

Even though we stopped by the cafeteria to get a pair of lunchboxes (which were tricky to carry since I had to keep holding on to the princess, lest she would run away), we managed to get to the roof with at least forty minutes left from the lunch break. Once I opened the door and the princess looked through, she finally spoke up for the first time since we left the classroom.

"I thought it would be just the two of us."

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"I don't remember ever saying that," I answered coyly. "Come on, let's not leave the others waiting."

I walked up to the gang sitting on the benches near the far corner of the roof and raised my hand still clasped on the princess' as we got close.

"Sorry for being late, I was weighted down a little." I looked over to the girl at my side and smiled at her, and even though it seemed like she was fighting against the urge, she returned the gesture in a fashion.

I took that as a fairly good indication that she wouldn't try to run away once I let go of her hand, so I did just that and focused my attention on Snowy instead. To my surprise, she wore a disapproving frown that was directed as much at me as it was at the blonde girl.

The princess seemed to share the sentiment, as she made it a point to sit as far from the white-haired girl as possible. We weren't up to a good start. I needed an ice-breaker.

"The weather is getting chilly, isn't it?" I opened the conversation.

"Yeah," Angie nodded with an exaggerated shiver. "Winter is coming."

She gave me a meaningful look like I was supposed to react to that.

"Was that a reference?"

Angie set her lips in a thin line of disapproval and casually snatched away a croquette from my lunchbox.

"Hey! What was that for!"

"It's punishment for being an uncultured swine," she stated haughtily before throwing the croquette into her mouth. More importantly though, she was derailing the conversation, so I subtly signaled towards Josh for support.

"That may be," he started uncertainly, "but I think Leo has a point. Soon we won't be able to have lunch breaks up here. Should we move to the cafeteria?"

"I don't know," I spoke while theatrically rubbing my chin. "What do you guys think?"

I purposefully asked the question while glancing over at the princess. She obviously received my intention, as she immediately shuddered.

"I... I don't know."

To my surprise (and dread), Snowy let out a scoff.

"What was that?" The princess responded eagerly with one of her traditional glares.

"Nothing." She said brazenly while opening her own lunchbox. "I don't think any of us were expecting you to come to a decision in the first place."

The princess dangerously narrowed her eyes at the comment and I had a feeling this was about to erupt into a full-fledged catfight, so I extended my arm between the two.

"Whoa there, guys. Calm down."

"I am calm," Snowy answered with a small pout.

"No, you are not," I countered. "Why are you picking a fight? It's not like you."

This time it was the princess' turn to snort, which then shortly turned into a derisive chuckle.

"Right, like you would actually know what she's like."

Contrary to my best efforts, it seemed like the situation was only getting worse by the second. Worse still, Snowy suddenly stood up and slipped into her vamp persona with a throaty, "What was that?!"

Not giving an inch, the princess also sprung to her feet with a glower.

"Blood is thicker than water. You might try to act like the good girl, and I played along because Leo asked me to, but I am not going to—!"

I was about to stand up as well to cut between the two, but before I could do that another voice cut off the princess's words.

"Stop it! Stop fighting!" Josh yelled out, startling everyone present, including me. There was a moment of silence, but then the princess let out a harsh "Hmpf!" and began walking towards the roof exit before I could grab her. Though, to be honest, I didn't even try. This plan of mine turned into an unmitigated disaster, and keeping the princess around against her will would have only made things worse.

Once she left, Snowy let out a pent-up breath and she slowly slouched back onto the bench next to Josh without a word and began eating with morose movements. For a minute or two the rest of the group kept sharing uncertain glances with each other, but in the end we began eating in silence as well. Needless to say, it was probably the most unpleasant group lunch we ever had.

It didn't mean I stopped thinking though. In fact, the situation was driving me crazy. I wanted them to get along. I wanted everyone to get along. I hated to see them at each other's throats like that, and the possibility that my meddling made it worse left me with a pang of guilt I was unfamiliar with.

I was so immersed in these thoughts that I barely noticed that one by one everybody left the roof. In the end there were only two people left, Judy and me. She moved to my side and whispered; "It didn't work out."

"No, it didn't," I answered bitterly. "I don't know what to do now."

"Nothing?" she proposed. "We should stop getting involved and get back to research."

"But there is nothing to research anymore!" I finally snapped and yelled at her. I immediately regretted the outburst and hid my face in my palm with a groan. "Sorry. I didn't mean to shout."

Judy didn't answer, but I could see her nodding from the corner of my eye. By that point I was too dispirited by my own words to care though. It was an unspoken truth I've been chewing on for the better part of a week. Sure, there have been a few additions every now and then, but as far as figuring out the nature of this place was concerned, we hit a roadblock the size of a mountain.

We had quite firmly established that this world was running on the logic of a school life harem series, and we described and tested most of the elements related to that, but by now we ran out of even those. Worst of all, said research brought us no closer to the answers to the ‘How?' and ‘Why?' questions, arguably the most important ones we had to solve.

I was broken out of my momentary lapse into depression by a soft hand tapping on my shoulder. I glanced up and found Judy holding onto me with an expression that I could tell was pained under her poker face.

"You need to relax, Chief. You are getting unhinged."

I chuckled in self-derision and then looked up at the sky while taking a deep breath

"Yeah, I think stress is finally catching up with me." I didn't want to tell her, but I figured it didn't help that, due to my lack of need for sleep, I had an extra eight hours per day to ponder over these things. It wasn't healthy in the long run.

"You could use a date then." My gaze snapped back at her and this time the laugh forcing its way through my teeth was a bit more genuine. She looked at me funny for a moment before she added, with just the barest hints of pouting in her voice: "Well, it worked for me."

"I know, I know," I replied while trying to rein in my chuckles. "Maybe you are right. Are you volunteering?" She nodded sharply. "Very well. I will think about it. For now, we should get going. The break is almost over." I stood up and Judy followed suit. We were almost at the door when I stopped and turned to her. "By the way... Thank you."

She hesitated for a moment, but then a small smile took hold of her lips and she answered "Don't even mention it, Chief. This is what I'm here for."

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